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dshseodelhi · 1 year ago

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Understanding HIV Testing: Types, Procedure, Timing & Results by DrSafeHands

HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a global health concern that affects millions of people. Early detection and diagnosis are critical in managing the virus and preventing its progression to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). DrSafeHands, a trusted healthcare provider, is here to guide you through the intricacies of HIV testing, including the types of tests, the testing procedure, when to get tested, and understanding the results.

Types of HIV Tests:

Antibody Tests:

These tests detect antibodies that your body produces in response to HIV infection.

Types: ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) and Rapid HIV Antibody Tests.

These tests are often the first step in HIV diagnosis.

Nucleic Acid Tests (NAT):

Also known as RNA tests, they directly detect the virus’s genetic material (RNA).

These tests are highly accurate and can detect HIV sooner than antibody tests.

NAT is typically used in early infection or when a recent exposure is suspected.

Antigen/Antibody Tests:

These tests simultaneously check for both HIV antibodies and the p24 antigen, a protein produced by the virus.

They can detect HIV earlier than traditional antibody tests.

HIV Testing Procedure:

The procedure for HIV testing is generally straightforward:

Counseling: Before the test, you’ll receive counseling to understand the test, its implications, and what the results mean.

Sample Collection: Depending on the type of test, a blood sample, oral swab, or urine sample may be collected.

Laboratory Testing: The collected sample is sent to a laboratory for analysis. Results may be available in as little as 20 minutes for rapid Hiv tests or a few days for standard tests.

When to Get Tested:

The timing of HIV testing is crucial:

Regular Testing: If you are sexually active or engage in behaviors that may put you at risk for HIV, regular testing is recommended. This includes getting tested annually or more frequently if necessary.

After a Potential Exposure: If you’ve had unprotected sex, shared needles, or been in a situation where HIV transmission is possible, get tested as soon as possible. A rapid test can provide quicker results.

During Pregnancy: HIV testing is a routine part of prenatal care to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

Understanding the Results:

Interpreting HIV test results can be emotionally challenging, but it’s essential to understand what they mean:

Negative Result: A negative result means that no HIV antibodies, antigens, or genetic material were detected at the time of the test. However, if you’ve been recently exposed, consider retesting after the window period.

Positive Result: A positive result indicates the presence of HIV in your body. It’s important to consult a healthcare provider immediately for further evaluation and care.

Inconclusive Result: Sometimes, test results may be inconclusive or require repeat testing. Your healthcare provider will guide you through the next steps.

Conclusion:

HIV testing is a critical step in managing and preventing the spread of the virus. DrSafeHands offers a range of HIV testing services, with expert counseling and support throughout the process. Remember, early detection and proper care can make a significant difference in living a healthy life with HIV. If you have any questions or concerns about HIV testing, don’t hesitate to reach out to DrSafeHands for guidance and care. Your health is their priority.

#Understanding HIV Testing: Types #Procedure #Timing & Results by DrSafeHands #hiv testing #hiv test #hiv testing center #hiv treatment #hiv #HIV testing in Delhi #HIV testing in pune #HIV testing In mumbai

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grison-in-space · 2 months ago

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from the number of asinine complaints about how "voting is NOT a form of harm reduction" because harm reduction is for ADDICTS! ONLY! I'm seeing around... all coming from OP blogs I don't recognize and which otherwise don't have much presence... well, that coordination alongside the timing of US politics sure feels like the Russian troll bots agitating again. (Yes, they absolutely infested Tumblr; I think @ms-demeanor had a great post about what the bots looked and felt like somewhere that I will have to try and track down tomorrow.)

The thing is, if you actually do know harm reduction well, the complaint makes no sense. It's not as if the origin of harm reduction is a secret or especially hard to find out more about. I am not exactly an expert in the field: I have a educated layperson's interest in public health and infectious disease, I'm a queer feminist of a certain age and therefore have a certain degree of familiarity with AIDS-driven safer sex campaigns, and I'm interested in disability history and self advocacy (and I would in fact clarify harm reduction as a philosophy under this umbrella). So I have about twenty years of experience with harm reduction as a philosophy basically by existing in communities whose history is intertwined with harm reduction, which means I know it well from many different angles, and I know how the story of the philosophy is generally taught.

See, this is a story that starts, as so many stories do, in the 1980s with something monstrous President Reagan was doing. In this case, it was the AIDS epidemic, and Reagan refusing to devote any money or time to what eventually became called AIDS (rather than the original GRIDS, which came with its own baked in homophobia). Knowing themselves abandoned by society in this as in all things, and watching as friends and loved ones died in droves, queers and addicts are two communities who see that they are the only resources that they collectively have to save each other's lives. Queers know that sex, even casual sex, is an important part of people's lives and culture... and people aren't going to stop doing it even if there's a disease, so how can it happen safely? Condoms. Condoms every time, freely available, easy and shameless, shower them on people in the street if you have to. (And other things: this is the origin of the concept of "fluid bonding", for example... both of which were concepts that were immediately adopted in response to COVID, like outdoor socially distsnced greetings and masks and "bubbles." That wasn't an accident. Normalizing sexual health tests and seeing hard results on paper before sex was a thing, too.)

Addicts, too, knew that using was going to happen no matter how earnestly people tried to stop. If it was that easy, addiction wouldn't exist. So: how do you make using safer for longer? If you could stop someone getting HIV before they could bring themselves to get clean, that's a whole life right there. If you could stop someone overdosing once, twice, a dozen times, that's more time you're buying them to claw themselves out of addiction and into a better place. Addicts see, right, needle sharing is getting the diseases spread, so cut down on needle sharing. Well, needles aren't easy to get hold of. Their supply is controlled because people who aren't prescribed needles are theoretically junkies, so taking the needles away makes it harder to use, right— and no one is complicit, and also you see fewer discarded needles lying around where they're unsanitary and unsafe, right? Except that people want to do a buddy a good turn, so they share if there's no other option, and they'll keep a needle going until it's literally too blunt to keep using if need be. So fighting needle sharing means making it easier to get needles to shoot up with: finding a place to discard used ones and get as many fresh ones as you need to use safely!

Making free needles available to junkies and free condoms for the bathhouses was not a popular solution with politicians, for perhaps obvious reasons. Nor was routine testing of the blood supply, because that cost money too. But these things work to stop the spread of disease. Thus the principle of harm reduction: policy interventions in response to communities that frequently engage in risky behavior should focus on whatever reduces aggregate harm by reducing the risk rather than by trying to reduce the behavior. The homos and junkies say look, all your societal judgement in the world hasn't stopped us being homos and junkies yet. You ain't going to look after us? We'll look after our own. And this is the form that takes. Not increasing the pressure to act like people who aren't is, but making it safer to be the people we are while we try to be the happiest versions of ourselves. Even if that means being morally complicit in a whole lot of casual sex and drug abuse.

The thing is, harm reduction is a philosophy rooted in the defiance of people who knew that their society thought they deserved to die painfully, young, invisible and alone. This is not the kind of thing that people come up with and get mad if you adapt it and share it, especially if you tell the story of where it came from. And importantly, harm reduction is not purely the child of addiction: that philosophy, from the get go, was cooked up to apply both to substance abuse and casual sex. It didn't just spread from addiction care; it was born straddling addiction care and queer & feminist health care.

So it doesn't make sense to see actual activists who know harm reduction well complaining that this is a term exhibiting semantic drift when we talk about voting as harm reduction. It's actually a good metaphor: you're reducing the overall risk of the worst case scenario metaphors by voting Democrat, at least until future votes can install a system where multiple parties can flourish on the political scheme. (Democrats and Republicans are essentially coalitions of a pack of arguing factions anyway, and those factions are essentially what would be classed elsewhere as a party in its own right; the US essentially just lumps political granularity rather than splitting it in our political system.) And anyone who understands harm reduction itself knows that.

So it's this wildly inorganic complaint being voiced repeatedly by different sources. Sounds like a pretty good flag for a potential psyop to me.

If you want to learn more about harm reduction and its history, especially from an addiction perspective, I cannot recommend Maia Szalavitz's Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction (2022) highly enough. Szalavitz has a history of addiction of her own as well as being a clear and accessible writer with an excellent grasp of neuroscience and history. I have a lot of respect for her work.

#us politics #harm reduction #voting #metaphors #psyops #i guess

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alostwanderernotfound · 3 months ago

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HIV and COVID

A major barrier to preventing the spread of HIV is accurate test results.

There is a high chance there are many people with HIV that have it and do not know. We do not know how long this undetected time period is (lentiviruses are often associated with long periods of time of virus activity that goes undetected- 5 to 10 years or more), but there is a chance many individuals with HIV go undiagnosed for many years. Individuals during this time before an HIV diagnosis complain of fatigue and many undiagnosed disabling symptoms during that time period. HIV is able to cause changes to immune cells that prevent HIV tests from finding the infection. Some people get negative HIV tests when they are HIV positive. This means you could be HIV negative, but still have HIV in your blood and can spread HIV to other individuals.

Getting a COVID vaccination (and sometimes other vaccinations like the flu vaccination) can help the body identify HIV hiding in the body. This allows earlier treatment and intervention. Once HIV has been identified, it also reduces the risk for all individuals in our population to be exposed to more severe infections.

Getting tested regularly for HIV used to be part of our federal public health recommendations.

This just further emphasizes why this information is so important to know and healthcare needs to start testing for more diseases in more people and do these tests more often.

People often assume their infection came from an unfaithful partner, but in reality HIV has been spreading unknowingly to many in the medical community and still in the public sphere no one is talking about it like the huge deal it is.

This potential means people could be raped as a child, never have sex again, never encounter drugs, and then be miserable & living with an active HIV infection into their early 20s and they would never know. Once they got a positive test result they would have no idea where the infection even came from.

Our entire understanding of these types of diseases has to change and the seriousness of this topic has to be addressed by the world. This was theorized as a mechanism of HIV spread due to how many people were getting diagnosed but had no identifiable cause of their HIV, but now it’s proven and right in front of us. This is disastrous.

To everyone that told the truth about how they didn’t know how they got these types of diseases & how they had no idea where they got it from then faced judgement from others and even the medical community- you aren’t crazy.

On behalf of everything these types of diseases did to destroy families, relationships, and your body, I’m going to apologize right now for all the individuals that I know won’t ever give you an apology for what they did and what they said.

I believe you. I always did.

Without you telling your truth , we never would have been able to figure this out about HIV.

HIV is spreading in “HIV negative” individuals to other individuals as some researchers theorized.

The mRNA vaccination technology developed is now the foundation for the next generation of HIV treatment and disease control. We must continue to push and advocate for improving the lives of all people with disease and we all just took a huge step forward.

You do not have to be sexually active to develop HIV. Your sexual trauma doesn’t have to define your life for the rest of your life- you are stronger than you know and braver than you feel.

Find a place to get tested for HIV here:

I still recommend getting a NAT or “viral load” test done as the first test to see if you have HIV.

I think considering what we know about HIV and in consideration of all the things we still don’t know that this is the safest option. Any other test for this condition available today has too high of a chance of producing a wrong result. I find it extremely uncomfortable we still use the other types of tests in the hospital and doctor office settings.

If you choose to order a test through an online service be aware some tests only tell you about either HIV-1 or HIV-2 and will not always provide you information related to type 1 and type 2.

For example, here:

This will provide you information related to ordering a test that looks for both types of HIV instead of just one strain of HIV.

Stay safe.

#hiv #virus #sick #chronically ill #chronic pain #chronic illness #chronic fatigue #pain #doctor #medicine #viral

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 6 months ago

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would you like to tell us about your research on virginity?

but also...wdym STIs aren't as scary as we think??? I was told most of them are incurable? I know you can make aids untrasmittable and that they've even succeded in curing it a couple times but that's about it. I would love to be educated about this

yeah, the basic idea with the virginity project was that the whole concept of virginity is pretty bullshit in the context in which it was initially significant, namely cisgender women being penetrated by cisgender men, so as soon as you take it outside of that context by introducing gay and trans sexuality it totally falls apart. I mean, hell, it stops working if you even look at two cishet people doing literally anything OTHER than penis-in-vagina sex. I tripped up so many people initially when I started asking questions like "okay, so you don't think a woman loses her virginity from a man going down on her. so what if it's two women? what's the difference?" and just really getting people to face down their very penis-centered view of the sex, to the result of several people telling me that it kind of made them reevaluate what they actually think of as the first time they had sex. it's also fascinating to either read other people's accounts or discuss firsthand how queer people have either tried to make themselves fit into the binary of virginity - queer man disagreeing over whether or not you have to have penetrative anal sex to lose your virginity or oral sex is sufficient, a fascinating case of a lesbian who felt that have sex with other cis women didn't "count" and asked a cis male friend to have sex with her just so she could feel satisfied that she'd lost her virginity - or abandon it entirely. Hanne Blank's book Virgin was a formative starting point, and it really exploded for me from there.

as for the STIs - hey, bad news! you fell victim to the scare tactics used to make people afraid of sex! almost all sexually transmitted infections are very easy to treat and cure with the right medicine, which is why it's important to get tested regularly and check in with your healthcare provider at the first sign of something amiss. pubic lice, scabies, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis - all of those are pretty easy to get rid of with some help from your doctor and a run to the pharmacy!

the major exceptions are the 4 H's: herpes, HIV, HPV, and hepatitis B.

herpes is with you forever but is an incredibly mild companion to share your body with, considering most people never experience any notable symptoms and those who do can curb the severity with medicine.

it's also worth noting that herpes is so common as to be virtually ubiquitous; the World Health Organization consistently estimates that somewhere around 80% of the world's adult population is carrying herpes simplex virus 1 or herpes simplex virus 2. a great deal of those people don't even get it from having sex, but rather by catching HSV-1 from a parent or other people they come is close contact with as a child.

you're actually thinking of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) when you mention AIDS becoming untransmittable, but that's still a very good thing! the care available for people with HIV has come incredibly far since AIDS first became known and claimed so many lives, and today it's more than possible for people infected with HIV to live long, healthy lives by taking the proper medication to manage their viral load.

with management, people with HIV will not develop AIDS (which happens when the immune system is sufficiently depleted by HIV) and by consistently taking their medication people with HIV can become undetectable (the viral load in their body is too small to be detected or measured in tests), at which point they are unable to transmit the virus to other people.

HPV (human paillomavirus) comes in many different strains, most of which are absolutely harmless and go away on their own after a couple of months or years of freeloading in your body. I cannot emphasize this enough: HPV is so common that virtually everyone who has sex has, will have, or has had it in their lives, and the vast, VAST majority of those people will never be troubled by it literally at all.

the trouble comes from a few strains of HPV that can cause genital warts, and a few others that can cause cancers in the throat, anus, cervix, vulva, vagina, and penis. while HPV can't be treated, you can reduce your risk of developing cancer by getting the HPV vaccine if you haven't already and, if you have a cervix, getting regular Pap smears to catch early warning signs of cancerous developments.

hepatitis B is a viral infection that targets the liver. in rare cases it can cause chronic health problems that can be very dangerous, but I have to emphasize that's not common. in most adults who get hep B, there will be no symptoms and it will resolve itself in a matter of weeks. the infection is riskiest in children, but at least in America most people have received vaccines against hepatitis B as babies since the 90s.

in conclusion: get your shots, take your medicine, use protection, get tested, and talk to your doctor, but know that if there's one thing humans are good at it's figuring out how to manage STIs. we've been doing it for a long time - most sexually transmitted infections and parasites have been with us since before we we became modern humans - so we're really good at it!

#sex edventures 2024 #sti posts

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genderkoolaid · 7 months ago

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HIV research and monitoring has historically excluded transgender men, creating blind spots in understanding this group’s sexual well-being and happiness. Two recent studies—one out of New York and the other from Germany—suggest that transgender men who have sex with other men have a higher prevalence of HIV than the general population. The German analysis further finds that transgender men who have sex with other men face a host of inequities compared to cisgender gay and bisexual men, including reduced access to sexual healthcare and less satisfying sex lives. [...] Almost three quarters of trans MSM reported their income was insufficient for them to live comfortably, compared to about half of cis MSM. The researchers note that the income disparity could be due to the trans MSM participants being younger on average, but they also suggest discrimination could play a role. In terms of mental health, survey scores indicated both groups experienced various degrees of depression and anxiety from mild to severe. However, trans MSM were almost four times as likely to suffer from severe anxiety and depression compared to cis MSM (15% vs 5%). Furthermore, trans MSM indicated far more suicidal ideation than their cisgender counterparts (41% versus 16%). The survey results also pointed to gaps in sexual satisfaction, with more trans MSM being unhappy with their sex life than cis MSM (34% versus 22%). Trans men more often disagreed that sex was as safe as they wanted (18% versus 11%) and indicated less ability to say no to unwanted sex (23% to 12%). Trans MSM reported fewer sexual partners than cis MSM, and the study authors propose that difficulties in finding partners due to stigma may contribute to less happiness in their sex lives. On the whole, trans MSM also had poorer access to healthcare compared to cis MSM. Fewer had ever received either an HIV test (41% versus 24%) or an STI test (55% versus 45%). Drawing on other research, the authors suggest that one reason for this may be discrimination in healthcare settings, which may cause trans men to avoid seeking sexual health services. The authors go on to say that stereotypes, such as assuming trans men only have sex with cisgender women, may also interfere with providing adequate care. Finally, although trans MSM had higher rates of HIV than the general population, this was lower than amongst cis MSM (2.5% versus 10.7%). A different study conducted in New York City by Dr Asa Radix and colleagues of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center also found that HIV prevalence is higher in transgender men. In this retrospective analysis, the authors identified a racially diverse group of 577 transgender men who sought care at the facility between 2009 and 2010. Among this group of men (mean age 32 years), less than half (n=250) had ever had an HIV test. Out of the 250 individuals who had, 2.8% (n=7) tested positive for HIV, a significantly higher rate of HIV than the current US national prevalence of 0.41%. Of the 18 trans men who had sex exclusively with cis men and tested for HIV, two (11.1%) were positive.

#m.#articles #examples of transandrophobia

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mooniel · 3 months ago

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Cherik hidden gems - part 1

Here you have some nice fics with with under 10k hits!

(part 2)

Repeat Offenses by popluxe; 35k: “Prickly bits aside—hell, for the two of them, prickly bits included—it almost felt like a date. Which is stupid on multiple fronts. Grudgingly buying your ex a meal after he grudgingly bails you out of jail is obviously not a date.”

Five times Charles bailed Erik out of jail—and one time he didn’t.

Wardrobe Malfunction by Sophia_Bee; 11k : Charles Xavier, Professor Hottie, the very first mutant Bachelor has a problem. It comes in the form of his wardrobe guy, one six foot sex on legs Erik Lehsherr. Oh, and the fact that he's gay. And on The Bachelor. To find his wife.

Three Days in April by Sophia_Bee; 11k: Charles Xavier is holding the envelope with the results of his HIV test from earlier that day, to afraid to look at them, when a handsome stranger named Erik plops a drink down in front of him. Charles finds he can tell a stranger about his woes easier than he can tell his friends and family, and he and Erik embark on a journey of friendship, starting with opening the test results together.

A Weeding Planner Walks Into a Bar by 1sttimefeeling; 19k: When Raven hires Erik to be the bartender at her wedding, he becomes quickly infatuated with the wedding planner, Charles Xavier, who he thinks is her fiancé.

A Toast to the Happy Couple by TurtleTotem; 4,7k: Charles needs to get married to get his inheritance; his best friend Erik is the obvious choice. Erik's straight, but it's all pretend anyway; of course he can keep seeing other people during their sham marriage. It would be just silly for Charles to be jealous.

Talk, Baby, Talk by lyonet; 20k: “Enough,” Erik said furiously. “It’s over. Let it die.” “Be fair, sugar,” Emma said. “We made good music. It was your choice to wear magenta armour and a cape.”

Best Ex Ever by 1sttimefeeling; 12k: Charles wakes up drunk on the pavement of a gas station, phone dead. He finds a payphone but can only remember one number. Erik Lehnsherr's. The problem? They broke up two years ago.

The Plus-One by Populuxe; 14k: When Erik grudgingly agrees to play Raven's boyfriend at her terrible family's holiday party, he'd thought the biggest challenge would be staying sober enough to make it convincing. But then he meets Raven's extremely hot—and extremely infuriating—stepbrother, and everything starts to get complicated.

Special Topics in Mutant Studies by Populuxe; 24k: The trouble with Charles Xavier isn’t just that he teaches genetics and holds terrible views about mutant rights—it’s also becoming increasingly clear that everyone but Erik seems to love him.

The Last Love Song & Testament of Charles F. Xavier by midrashic; 20k: When Erik is accused of domestic terrorism, Charles has no choice but to marry him to keep him out of jail.

Here it is! Now, i plan on making a part 2 of this if anyone is interested! I wanted to make the list under 5k hits but there were some nice ones that I wanted to recommend as well that had a bit more so here we go!

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #cherik fanfic #xmen fanfic #cherik fic rec #xmen fic rec #cherik fanfic rec #btw feel free to dm me asking for recommendations ill be happy to do it!

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koyangii · 2 months ago

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Love in the big city and HIV

So, I have recently watched one of the best dramas of the year, “Love in the big city”, in which HIV is a major theme.

The show portrays really well the stigmatized scenario around HIV: as a person living with the virus, Go Young feels exactly as if he's carrying some kind of curse. He can't accept it, but who can blame him for that, if "Kylie", as he calls the virus, is always around like an inconvenient person? In his sex life, while applying to a job, and even while hanging out with friends.

Society doesn't make it easy for a person living with HIV to accept the condition and that's essential when it comes to healthcare, which is what I want to address today.

First, let me introduce myself: my name is Nico and I'm a Medicine student in Brazil. Here, we have probably one of the biggest public health system in the world, the Unified Health System (a.k.a. SUS). In this essay, I intend to share some general information about HIV, its treatment and prevention, by using some parts of “Love in the big city” to discuss this theme, because although the show did an amazing job when it comes to talking about it, there are some points I found needed some better explanation.

HIV is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that can also be transmitted by the contact with infected blood (e.g: incompatible blood transfusion; use of shared needles) or from the mother to a child inside the womb or during labor. The virus uses a specific type of immune cell to multiply. Explaining it in a very simple way, he gets inside the cell, uses its components to produce new viral copies and then ruptures the cell membrane to release these new copies in the blood, killing the cell by doing so. For this reason, untreated HIV is very dangerous, since it can cause immunodeficiency (failure of the immune system), making the person susceptible to acquire opportunistic infections, which are diseases that usually don’t occur in people with regular immune systems. When someone has immunodeficiency caused by HIV, this person is diagnosed with Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). That being said, AIDS and HIV are not the same. There are many people living with HIV that don’t have AIDS, thanks to appropriate treatment.

There are multiple ways a person can discover about having HIV: you can be notified because the person you have had relations with discovered the infection, or by taking blood tests for blood donation, or in the worst case scenario, when you are already suffering from an opportunistic infection. Go Young, for example, discovered it because of the blood tests results while he was in the army. One thing I found very outrageous was that the physician instantly inferred that Go Young was gay because of that, but this is impossible, since anyone can get the virus, regardless of their sexual orientation. This appointment was like a death sentence: the unempathetic doctor as a ruthless judge, blaming the patient and not offering a single word of comfort. (Quite the opposite: he even asked that very intimate question about sex positions. Seriously, I wanted to punch this doctor so hard.)

Nonetheless, even if it was made in a very inappropriate way, diagnosis is still very important, because that is the only way one can have access to treatment. Each patient must be evaluated separately, since treatment may vary due to the different genetic subtypes of the virus and the person’s own body response. Medication can also be adjusted until satisfactory results are accomplished. Overall, all patients are submitted to a lifetime antiretroviral therapy in order to stop the virus from multiplying and to keep immune cells at a higher level. In the series, we can see Go Young asking for any antiretroviral in a pharmacy, but in real life, he would be very specific about the drugs.

If done properly, treatment can provide quality of life and long life expectancy (very similar to people who don’t have HIV), prevent opportunistic infections and, most importantly, transmission! Yes, that is exactly what you read: treatment can result in really low levels of HIV in the blood, which is called “undetectable viral load” if it happens for at least six months. There is even a saying which goes “Undetectable = untransmittable”. In this scenario the patient can even have sex without a condom with their partner, which is what happened with Go Young and Gyu Ho in the series. However, it is important to mention that this only applies to HIV: one can still get other STIs while having unprotected sex.

In addition to condoms and proper treatment, there are other ways of preventing HIV infection. Susceptible people can use the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PREp) medication, which highly reduces the risk of getting HIV from intercourse (and also from blood contact in a less effective way). There is also the post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which can prevent infection if taken within 72 hours after possible exposure. Treating other STIs, not sharing needles, using lubricant (less chance of injury during intercourse) and avoiding sex while in use of alcohol or drugs are some other habits we can do ourselves to minimize the risk of acquiring HIV.

Nevertheless, individual actions can help only until a certain point, given that the best prevention is the “combination prevention”, which includes not only behavioral and biomedical approaches, but also structural interventions. Every country should have their own public policies to assist people living with HIV and to prevent transmission. I’m proud to say that, in Brazil, thanks to our public health system, everyone has access to condoms, lubricants, tests, treatment, PREp and PEP - all free of charge. The system also has policies of damage control, providing all of these strategies to the population of risk, such as sex workers and people with a substance use disorder, including kits with individual needles to prevent sharing and, consequently, blood transmission. No wonder we are an international reference for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.

To conclude, I also need to remind you that you can actively help in this cause by simply showing support. As we all watched in “Love in the big city”, a person living with HIV faces all kinds of prejudice in society. Go Young carried a heavy burden for years, not being able to share it with anyone until Gyu Ho embraced him. Sometimes, patients have these prejudices themselves and it can deeply hinder treatment. I have seen this myself: a patient that denied the diagnosis and returned to the hospital sometime later with a severe health condition.

You can be the person that will accept and embrace this other person, who is only living with a chronic condition, such as many people who live with hypertension or diabetes, for example. You can be the person that will call out on others for their preconceived opinions. You can be the person who will share high-quality information to your friends, family, fellow workers or students (There are links in the last paragraph with reliable information for those who want to do some further research).

Finally, I can’t stress enough how much I loved “Love in the big city” for addressing so many types of love and so many sensitive topics, including this one, in such a beautiful way. It has been a long time since I had felt so connected to a story, to a character so human like Go Young.

I hope this essay provided a little bit of information to you. I mostly used the knowledge I have learned in college and sites of well-recognized organizations, such as the UNAIDS, the World Health Organization (WHO) and, for the Portuguese speakers, the Brazilian Ministry of Health (Ministério da Saúde). Thank you for reading, and please, feel free to send me any questions you might have, I’ll do my best to answer them. Also, if you notice any English mistakes, please let me know so I can correct them.

#love in the big city #HIV #aids #health and wellness #healthcare #medicine #SUS #Unified health system #Sistema único de saúde #Viva o SUS #Proteja o SUS #go young #gyu ho

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remembertheplunge · 7 months ago

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The gay men's take on Prop 64: 1986: Concentration Camps for people with AIDSs HIV

11/3/1986. Monday

It now approaches midnight.

A very pleasant evening at Tom and Greg's house. Nice wine and desert and Italian food (pasta) and friends. Talk ranged from “I’m homosexual and gay. What do you think about that?” A gay friend from San Fransisco and his lover, from Rocklin said “oh, you looked great as a 40’s drag queen. My second boyfriend was captain of the high school football team.” The conversations also ranged to "Aids may wipe out the entire world population or it may be cured soon. "AIDS is all that they talk about in San Fransisco."

”But, don’t get this entry wrong, most of the time chit chat was just that, Tom's upcoming trip to China, There is a peacefulness in Mexico and a rushed feel to US life. Downtown Sacramento whose people are like machines.

The early stage party uptightness mellowed to late evening hugs and Cheer.

My margin note to the above entry:

Regarding Proposition 64, on the California ballot for the 11/4/1986 State Election which if adopted could result in concentration camps for people withHIV AIDS: Tom and Greg said “Don’t get an Aids test. If you test positive, you could be marked for 'prejudice camps' etc."

(Prop 64 would have required mandatory reporting of people who tested positive for HIV AIDS to the government leading to possible forced entry into an HIV Aids concentration camp .)

Notes: Tom and Greg (not their real names) were gay friends of mine when I lived in Sacramento to in 1986-1987.

#Propostion 64: California 1986 State election HIV Aids Concentration Camps #11/3/1986 #Don't get an HIV test because you could be forced into a “prejudice” camp #Gay friends #See my related 11/2/2024 blog re: Prop 64

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fidicushiv · 3 months ago

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youtube

Call : +917997101303 | Whatsapp : https://wa.me/917997101505 | Website : https://fidicus.com

తప్పు జరిగితే ఈ HIV పరీక్షలు చేయించుకోండి | Tests for HIV AIDS | Treatment Medicine | Dr. Bharadwaz

Discover the latest advancements in HIV/AIDS testing in this informative video. Learn about cutting-edge diagnostic methods that offer faster, more accurate results, helping in early detection and improved treatment options. Stay informed about new tests like fourth-generation antigen/antibody tests, RNA testing, and home testing kits. Watch now to understand how these innovations are shaping the fight against HIV/AIDS and improving health outcomes worldwide.

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#FidicusHIV #HIV #AIDS #HumanImmunodeficiencyViruses #AcquiredImmuneDeficiencySyndrome

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#AlternativeTherapy #AdjuvantTherapy #AlternativeMedicine #AlternativeSystem

Specialty Clinic Fidicus HIV highest success with homeopathy Improve Wellness | Increase Longevity | Addresses Questions

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godlessondheimite · 8 months ago

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There’s a line in Goodbye Love in one of the demos of RENT where Mark might have HIV and he’s so worried that he won’t even look at the results because he’s afraid he’ll break, and Roger—who is about to abandon Mimi—promises Mark that, if Mark tests positive, he’ll come back, and Mark goes “Why is it easier to return to a friend than to burn with a lover til the end?” And Roger goes “Not as much to lose.” Which I think is fucked up! So fucked up that I took the time to explain the setup just to post about it!

#rent

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covid-safer-hotties · 13 days ago

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Also preserved in our archive

by Hannah Buttle

Editor’s note: This article contains a brief mention of suicidal ideation.

Key points you should know:

There are currently no approved treatments for Long COVID and progress on clinical trials has been slow. Some medications can improve people’s quality of life, but they may not work for everyone.

With few choices, rejected disability claims, financial instability, and little support, some people with the disease have turned to online pharmacies, often based in India, to source potential medications.

Popular choices include medications used to treat conditions like HIV, hepatitis C, and acute COVID-19. Some of these drugs are being tested in upcoming clinical trials for Long COVID.

Buying medications online from unknown sellers can be risky; buyers might not receive the correct medication or even receive something harmful.

However, many people with Long COVID feel their quality of life has declined so severely that these risks are worth taking. With no approved treatments, lack of support, and stigma against the disease, many people with Long COVID are using overseas pharmacies to source medications. Some of these treatments are widely used for other conditions, such as HIV and hepatitis C, but are not approved for use in Long COVID.

“I was in such a desperate situation,” said Rafael, who lives in the U.K. and developed Long COVID in 2021. “I was bedbound, and I was within months of losing my job, which would then mean losing my home. So I didn’t have much to lose.”

Rafael bought several months’ worth of Maraviroc, an HIV drug, from a seller in India via WhatsApp. Soon after taking the Maraviroc, Rafael had a significant improvement in symptoms, although he was taking other medications at the same time.

“If I wasn’t so debilitated by Long COVID, I probably wouldn’t have taken the risk,” Rafael said.

The Sick Times spoke to several people with Long COVID who had used online pharmacies to import medications from abroad. Because importing medication can be illegal in certain circumstances, many sources interviewed for this article asked to be identified by their first name only or by a pseudonym.

Popular choices for people with Long COVID included the acute COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid, the HIV drugs Maraviroc and Truvada, and the hepatitis C drug Sofosbuvir. Maraviroc and Truvada are currently being evaluated in an upcoming clinical trial at the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illness, but results are not expected until at least early 2026.

Some people with Long COVID find some relief with off-label medications like low-dose naltrexone, but many told The Sick Times their doctors won’t prescribe these treatments. Even when doctors are willing to consider off-label treatments, health insurance often will not cover them.

Few treatments in sight The slow progress on clinical trials for Long COVID has been a source of frustration for both researchers and patients. The pharmaceutical industry has expressed little interest in finding treatments for the disease. Studies through the RECOVER initiative, launched by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), have primarily focused on observational approaches, such as asking people with Long COVID to track their symptoms, though the initiative is now planning new trials.

An analysis by The Sick Times found that fewer than a quarter of clinical trials for Long COVID are drug interventions, as of November 2024.

(interactive graph here)

Even when clinical trials take place, there is no guarantee of a “one-size-fits-all” treatment for Long COVID, said Ondine Sherwood, CEO of Long COVID SOS, a charity in the U.K. representing people with the disease. Currently, the available drugs may help only with specific symptoms or may work only for certain subsets of people with Long COVID.

Given the severity of symptoms and widespread government abandonment, it is unsurprising that some people with Long COVID have taken risks to seek relief from their symptoms since the beginning of the pandemic. Past unapproved treatments have included HELP apheresis, an expensive procedure that removes blood from a vein, filters the blood, and returns the filtered blood to the body. Many have also tried triple anticoagulant therapy, in which patients take aspirin, clopidogrel, and a blood thinner like Apixaban to break down small blood clots, called microclots. There is a high bleeding risk associated with triple anticoagulant therapy.

For many people with Long COVID, however, anything that offers a chance of improvement may seem worthwhile. Survey data suggest that the quality of life of someone with Long COVID can be worse than that of someone with stage four cancer. People with Long COVID may also be at a higher risk for suicidal ideation.

Financial insecurity can also drive people with Long COVID to consider experimental treatments, as many are out of work, behind on housing payments, and facing other financial challenges.

Some doctors may be willing to prescribe medications off-label for Long COVID and related conditions, like dysautonomia and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). Commonly prescribed drugs include beta-blockers, which lower heart rate, for dysautonomia, or H1 and H2 antihistamines for MCAS.

Dysautonomia drugs can lead to “massive improvement” for some, said Dr. Asad Khan, who worked as a respiratory doctor in the U.K. before developing Long COVID. For example, a beta blocker could bring down a patient’s heart rate while posing a limited risk, he said.

But some off-label treatments could carry higher risks, especially without a doctor’s oversight, said Khan: “You've got people taking anticoagulants and various other drugs that can affect the kidney, and the liver, and can have effects on the nervous system, and nobody's monitoring. The problems could be quite serious, and it could even be fatal.”

However, doing nothing for a patient can also put them in danger, said Khan. For instance, some research indicates that COVID-19 can lead to a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes for years after the infection.

People with Long COVID echoed these concerns. “I worry that, the longer we wait, the higher the destruction in our bodies,” said Lena, from Germany, who has had the disease since 2021.

After a difficult few months of symptoms, Lena decided to buy a generic form of Truvada, an HIV medication, through an online pharmacy. While she was scared, “pure despair” led her to try the medication, she said.

“I was having suicidal ideation,” she said. “If you have to weigh up how I was feeling versus taking an unknown pill, there’s no contest.” Many people with Long COVID who spoke to The Sick Times felt that buying medication online was their only choice.

How online pharmacies work Without a doctor to recommend the correct drug and dosage, many people with Long COVID receive advice from online social media groups. Users share tips on which drugs had worked for them, how to slowly increase the dosage of medications, and which side effects to expect.

Most of those interviewed by The Sick Times reported purchasing drugs without a prescription, either from national online pharmacies or from India via services like IndiaMart, an online marketplace. India is the world's largest exporter of generic pharmaceuticals.

“For me, what helped was a combination of ten days of Paxlovid and Sofosbuvir,” an antiviral drug for hepatitis C, said Tiff, from the U.S., who developed Long COVID in 2020. Tiff had read online about other people finding relief from the disease with these medications. She asked a friend to bring them back from India and had a significant decline in symptoms.

“I felt like I did pre-2020,” she said. “I had energy. I felt wonderful. No [Post-exertional malaise (PEM)] crash, no brain fog, no symptoms, nothing.” Tiff was later reinfected with SARS-C0V-2, and her Long COVID symptoms returned. She once again bought Sofosbuvir and Paxlovid from a seller in India and saw an improvement.

Lower prices offer another incentive to buy medications from abroad. Take Paxlovid, which can cost as much as $1,400 for a five-day course in the U.S., while a generic version from India costs just $103.

Sofia lives in Austria and has Long COVID. “In Austria, it would cost €40,000 for four months of Sofosbuvir,” she said, which “would be unaffordable.”

An anonymous Twitter/X user offered to help Sofia. She sent him €200, and he bought the medication in India and took it back to Europe. Since taking the Sofosbuvir, Sofia said she went from 40% to 60% of her previous level of functioning.

Risks and regulations Generic medications in the U.S., U.K., and Europe are commonly exported from India. But those exported through official channels are often subject to stricter regulatory standards than the medications available to locals. For those who have bought medications online from abroad, confirming the medications are safe can be difficult.

“We don’t have a functional regulatory system in India,” said Dinesh Thakur, a drug-safety advocate and former pharmaceutical executive. Online markets like IndiaMart have no safety guarantee.

“In the best-case scenario, the product may not contain enough of the active ingredient,” he said. “In the worst-case scenario, an injectable may contain endotoxins [harmful substances released by bacteria].”

If buyers from outside India have a bad experience, it would be difficult to hold a foreign company to account, Thakur added.

Nonetheless, many who spoke to The Sick Times felt that, despite the risks involved, they had to try something to relieve their symptoms.

“The symptoms grind you down so much, the risk calculus changes,” said Chris, from the UK, who has had Long COVID since 2020. “There is no help coming, nothing on the horizon.”

The World Health Organization has a checklist for gauging the safety of medicines purchased online. Tips include looking out for unusual activity on your credit card, checking security seals, and ensuring the batch number and expiry date on the package match throughout.

People with Long COVID may also be able to access off-label medications from more reliable sources. For instance, some online clinics may prescribe medications after a consultation. RTHM, a U.S.-based online clinic, offers a prescribing service for certain off-label medications for Long COVID, including low-dose naltrexone, beta-blockers for dysautonomia, and ketotifen for MCAS. In the U.K., those with a confirmed diagnosis of Long COVID or ME can buy low-dose naltrexone through Dicksons Chemist.

Another option for a small number of those with Long COVID is to join a clinical trial — though depending on the trial’s setup, some participants may receive a placebo instead of a drug.

Without the oversight of a pharmacist, taking a DIY approach to medications could also lead to dangerous medication interactions, even when the drugs are high quality. Paxlovid, for example, interacts with many drugs people take for Long COVID. These include ivabradine, some statins, and HIV medications. The University of Liverpool offers a COVID-19 drug interactions checker, which could help those using drugs like Paxlovid.

Regular blood tests could also help monitor for side effects. Truvada and Maraviroc can increase liver enzymes, and patients who take these medications for HIV prevention and HIV are advised to monitor liver enzymes regularly. Rafael, who bought Maraviroc, said he received monthly liver checks while taking the drug. These tests, which individuals can do privately without a GP referral, cost around £50 ($60) in the U.K.

Even if medications are safe, they are not guaranteed to work. People with Long COVID risk spending hundreds to thousands of dollars without success. New drugs could also lead to worse symptoms and significantly worsen a person’s health baseline.

Chris tried several medications, including Maraviroc and blood thinners, but has seen few improvements in symptoms. “You end up becoming your own guinea pig because nothing else is happening,” he said.

“It’s easy to depict people as reckless and not understanding the risks. But that’s not the case at all. Everyone understands the risks —they’re doing it because they’ve got no choice.”

#mask up #public health #wear a mask #pandemic #covid #wear a respirator #still coviding #covid 19 #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #long covid #covid19 #covid conscious #covid is not over

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sparklypepper · 1 year ago

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@hungarianmudkip69 recently asked @vaspider about the spread of HIV. The excellent discussion there focused largely on qualitative aspects, notably what was going on socially in the 1970s and 80s, HIV's subtlety and long incubation periods, and exponential growth (along with a great refutation of accidental needle sticks as a dominant vector).

I've got a math and physics background - I have some extremely relevant intuition, but I still prefer being able to find real-world numbers to confirm that I haven't misapplied it. I encourage checking out all the links in this post; there's a lot of great information!

We can't literally go back in time and test everyone for HIV, but it is possible to model and estimate, e.g. this 2021 report from the CDC (US-only).

The second graph of figure #2 is very close to what we discussed:

(MMSC is male-to-male sexual contact and IDU is injection drug use; see the article for other details.)

Again, these are estimates, so we can't take the exact numbers as fact, but let's look at the big picture. HIV likely first arrived in the US around 1970; it first gained public attention in 1981, when the CDC reported cases of what we now call AIDS. At that point, the estimate is an order of magnitude of tens of thousands of HIV infections.

The original asker was interested in the behavior of a "patient zero" (see also "Debunking the Myth of Patient Zero", an excellent video linked in that thread). These numbers help us see how little effect one hypothetical person's behavior could have had on the end result. As long as the virus was transmitted at all, it was going to reach the highest-risk populations eventually, and spread once there, whether it took one hop or ten. It was also essentially impossible to notice the pattern and infer the existence of HIV/AIDS in the US until multiple people in the same community developed AIDS and contracted unusual infections - which most likely means that it's reached that high-risk population, and ten years have passed.

Tens of thousands of infections is simply the result of exponential growth during those ten years; stopping it from becoming an epidemic would've required everyone's behavior to have changed. Different behavior, different transmission, different number of hops early on would more likely have changed how long it took to spread widely enough to become noticeable, not whether it did. (An unfortunately familiar concept, in the year 2023.)

The authors also mention that "trend data comparing subpopulations is likely to be robust for each period examined", so let's look back at those individual lines. Injection drug use (IDU) actually was a fairly significant means of transmission by the 1980s, and by the mid-80s, the spread among gay/bi men (MMSC) was beginning to decline. At the end of the decade, IDU may even have passed MMSC. Simultaneously, transmission was still rising among straight people. It shouldn't be too surprising that straight sex became significant; there are rather a lot of straight people!

The CDC also has us covered for a more current picture, as of 2017-2021 in the US:

This does vary greatly by country. Notably, as of 2022 in England, 49% of new diagnoses were among heterosexuals, compared to 45% among gay/bi men. (Do keep in mind that there are far more straight people, so still, a far higher fraction of gay/bi men were diagnosed.)

I personally find that I get the best understanding when I'm able to combine some direct evidence/data with an understanding of the history and social forces; hopefully this piece helps at least one person out in that way!

[Finally, as a footnote: trans women also exist (hi I'm one) and have historically been at high risk. I am unsure to what extent trans women are omitted versus misgendered in the above data. I wanted to focus on historical estimates over time here, and unfortunately wasn't able to find that for trans women, but this review article links to and summarizes some data from two meta-analyses.]

#hiv #aids #exponential growth #epidemics

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 1 month ago

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hi sex witch! this is a basic question but i've heard wildly conflicting things over the years, so: how frequently would you recommend getting STI tested if I'm having sex with multiple partners/regularly having new partners? I know after every new partner is a good rule of thumb, but are we talking the next day, or are some infections like covid in that they can take a few days to show up on a test? Thank you! ~sincerely, someone having a surprisingly productive whore era

hi anon,

a three week waiting window after each new partner is generally best, since some STIs won't show up on a test if you go earlier than that. going the next day would show admirable gumption, but I'm afraid it also wouldn't provide very accurate results!

the only exception is HIV, which can take up to three months to show up.

plan accordingly, and have fun in your whore era!

#sex edventures 2024

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sneckoil · 7 months ago

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ok so i haven't watched housemd since i was a kid and just finished s1 and i am just. why is cameron written like that. genuinely her thing with house had me so completely lost this season. feels like a waste of a great actress but?? maybe I'm wrong?? she just feels so. empty as a character to me. regardless i would love to know what your opinion is on the character bc from what i remember it doesn't get better from here

I dont blame you ban-joey and I really appreciate your courage to send this off anon. We probably have the same experience. I watched house as a kid too (when I was 14, like 10 yrs ago) and hated her for being contrarian and inconsistent and in the way. But since then i’ve looked inward and found i was imposing double standards wrought by internalized misogyny. Anyway.

My opinions on cameron:

Number 1, if i were her i would shoot my shot with house too. excuse me. as if most of us on here are not just twenny… thirty somethings pining after old men. happily going on a monster truck date? getting a date in return for the old man to have me back on my team? Yeah. I respect the hustle. fuck that old man or whatever. marry him when he’s sick. phantom thread him

Number 2, liking Cameron is easy once you accept. That she is really really really not normal. I know this may be something you already know. But internalize it. She says something righteous but it doesnt mean that that is her defining trait. There is something so deeply wrong with her. I know you’re still on season 1 and Yes she Gets Worse but if you are working with the same lens as i am (that there’s something WRONG with her) then everything that happens makes sense. [spoilers] Of course youre only attracted to people when they’re sick and dying. Of course your reaction to being told youre boring is getting high on your patient’s drugs a few weeks away from your HIV test results. Of course you wanted to cheat on your dying husband with his best friend who comforted you while your husband was dying but you didn’t and you still haven’t after the fact he died. Of course you kept your dead husband’s sperm. Of course you wanted to kill a dictator but didnt, and then got pissed at your husband who Did kill him, a husband you actually felt nothing for and was hesitant to even let propose to you [/end spoilers] she’s so funny. If she were a guy they’d call her a messy bitch and love her for it. she has uncategorizable mental illnesses masking as a savior complex.

Number 3, you’re right about the emptiness on some level though. They wanted to write her out of the show and they did her so bad. And I’d say yeah she’s inconsistent as a character, but that goes for Everyone in this show. House isn’t consistent. Wilson isn’t consistent. None of them are consistent. Cameron is only as well-written as the writer who knows how to write her. I’ve suspected the only reason i hated her when I was 14 was she got in the way of hilson. But nowadays that stuff is so unserious to me. All i care about now is messy people being messy about other people

Number 4, she compels me. I like that she’s interesting. I don’t like most of her decisions, I disagree with her the most, but it’s interesting. She’s fun to Watch. She’s no Foreman (that guy is a case study in layers of character depth but that’s for another ramble) but that’s more than i can say for her than someone like, say, Chase LMAO

That being said if you dont like cameron then that’s fine 👍 we live in a society etc etc

I end with this (thank you jackie for putting this image on my feed)

#shioshpam

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